Moeite met Engels? We hebben dit interview ook in het Nederlands.
On 20 October Californian Emo Revival band Movements released its debut album Feel Something through Fearless Records. Even though their music speaks for itself, we were still curious and thus got in contact with Movements‘ lead singer to get to know the band and the album even better before they arrive in Europe for the second half of their album release tour with Knuckle Puck.
Thanks for your time, before we dive in, we’ll start with an easy question: Can you introduce yourself to those who aren’t familiar with you yet?
My name is Patrick Miranda and I sing for a band called Movements.
Your music is very personal, showing emotions and feelings people rarely show willingly to the public. Why did you choose to do so?
Patrick: Everything i’ve ever written is very deeply personal to my life. I find that it’s the only way I can ever really say the things that are difficult to say in normal conversation. Music is my outlet. I can be honest with how I’m feeling when I’m writing, instead of putting on a front.
Do you feel choosing such a personal approach/theme makes it easier or harder to write an album?
Patrick: It’s a little bit of both. Since I’m just speaking openly about what I go through, it’s not hard to write about in the moment. However, it can be really emotionally draining because I’m jam packing our music with all of the things I don’t like to talk about. I found that after writing an entire 11-12 songs that I was just completely fucked up all over again and it put me in a really weird place for a while. I think that’s important though, because it’s all part of the healing process.
I can imagine releasing your debut album can make you quite nervous. How did you deal with the whole situation?
Patrick: It’s incredibly nerve wracking. The EP was so well received that we were worried about making sure that we met the bar that it had set for our future releases. You get so close to the project when it’s happening that you start to second guess whether or not what you’re doing is actually good or not, though. It was really scary putting out the record and not knowing what people were going to say about it. Thankfully, almost all of the feedback we’ve gotten has been super positive.
I can imagine it easily becomes emotional during recording sessions of an album like Feel Something. Did it ever become too much? How do you deal with such situations?
Patrick: It definitely does. As I said before, it’s a very emotionally overwhelming process. I think it’s important to pace myself, because there were times where I would just get so overwhelmed that it would make me very stressed and I wouldn’t sing well. Overall I was fine and we got through it, but it’s definitely a lot to handle.
Daylily and Deep Red are two of the happier tracks on the album. Their positions in the tracklist seem to be carefully chosen to lighten up the mood a bit in between the heavy moments. Do you feel like they were necessary for this exact reason or is there a different reason they ended up on the album?
Patrick: You hit the nail on the head. We wanted to make sure that the record wasn’t just sad and dark all the way through. The record sort of moves in cycles, like the ones described in Full Circle. There’s really low points, and then really high points, and eventually it’s always going to swing around through both. We made sure Daylily and Deep Red were placed where they were so they’d have the biggest impact.
Of course the first thing on your mind will be the tour you’re on at the moment with Knuckle Puck, but do you have more plans for the future already?
Patrick: We do! We’re in the process of planning our first ever headlining tour. We’ll be doing a full US run with some great support bands in spring of 2018. Can’t say much else about it now, but we’re very excited!
The tour with Knuckle Puck will also take you to Europe and The Netherlands, which will be the first time you’ll visit our country. Do you have any specific expectations from a tour so far away from home and The Netherlands in general?
Patrick: I really don’t know what to expect honestly. I’ve never been overseas at all, even for just vacation, so I’m beyond excited. I’m just hoping that people throughout the rest of the world will like our music! We’ll see.
Thanks for the interview and hopefully we’ll see you on 6 December in Dynamo Eindhoven in The Netherlands.
Patrick: Thanks for having me!
Feel Something by Movements can be bought here. On 6 december the band will support Knuckle Puck during their show in the Netherlands. Tickets and more information about the show can be found here.
